Medium severity · published May 12, 2026
CVE-2026-44223
vLLM: extract_hidden_states speculative decoding crashes server on any request with penalty parameters
6.5
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
vLLM is an inference and serving engine for large language models (LLMs). From 0.18.0 to before 0.20.0, the extract_hidden_states speculative decoding proposer in vLLM returns a tensor with an incorrect shape after the first decode step, causing a RuntimeError that crashes the EngineCore process. The crash is triggered when any request in the batch uses sampling penalty parameters (repetition_penalty, frequency_penalty, or presence_penalty). A single request with a penalty parameter (e.g., "repetition_penalty": 1.1) is sufficient to crash the server. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.20.0.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 30% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
VL
vllm · vllm-project
>= 0.18.0, < 0.20.0 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-44223
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-44223
Issue Tracking
https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/pull/38610
Mitigation
https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/security/advisories/GHSA-83vm-p52w-f9pw
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